


Burmese Boxing

by keuppia



Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Class Issues, Gen, Hands, M/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:34:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23110069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keuppia/pseuds/keuppia
Summary: Nacho thinks about the peasants somewhere at the crest of South America; smiling peasant families digging their hands into the dirt, planting coca plants in little green rows. Planting and toiling under the gunfire and smoke, so that some distant gringo lawyer can snort his second wind off a bathroom sink; so a college kid can get a better lay. So that he can sit here, in his big house, having dinner with his asshole boss, and feel like shit.
Relationships: Eduardo "Lalo" Salamanca/Ignacio "Nacho" Varga
Comments: 38
Kudos: 86





	Burmese Boxing

**Author's Note:**

> This was finished around 5.03, so that's when it's set. Any similarities to events after 5.03 are probably coincidences. But a small part of me will always believe the very-successful writers of BCS stole the idea of Lalo menacing a fish tank from me, personally.

The front of his father's store is for the customers, and it's nice: well-lit, well-ventilated, smelling of calfskin and soap. But the sewing room in back is a sweatshop. In the summer, the air trapped inside hangs dead, as the heat pours out of the machines and the close-together bodies. Working there, Nacho thinks, was like trying to work inside a microwave. As much as he loves his dad, he doesn't miss the job. The days were long and the pay was never good enough, and the other workers were always tweaker-twitchy around him—like they thought he might cap them for mixing up suede with nubuck leather.

Of course, there will always be a shining, golden version of the shop in his mind; a symbol of something the cartel doesn't own and can never touch. But as for the work itself, there's only one thing about it Nacho misses. It's that feeling he would get, every eight PM or so, when he finally turned off the sewing machine and stood up. He would stretch his aching back and look around, and he was able to see all the work he'd done that day. He had created something, and could hold the proof of it in his own cramping, calloused hands.

Nacho talks with his hands sometimes. But everyone's hands have something to say.

Even before the chair, Hector Salamanca had soft hands. Sure, they were wrinkled and veiny on the backs, but his palms were smooth as a child's. The years of spilled blood left no trace; he has the same hands every old man gets, once he stops doing his own dirty work. Aristocratic hands.

Hector thought his family had the right to rule forever, just because of how they were born; which, in Nacho's eyes, put Hector right in line with every other rich man in the country. His dad will never acknowledge that; he's still so proud of his citizenship, still thinks the US is the greatest country in the world. And maybe it is a great place, if you want to spend the rest of your life hunched over in the back room, sewing greasy leather onto old chairs. But if you thought maybe, just once, you deserved to be the guy out front? Forget about it.

Nacho doesn't think he's ever had a boss who was smarter or more competent than he was—apart from his dad, and maybe, unfortunately, Lalo. Getting a good job is all about connections. Just look at Tuco: that man was not fit to run a goddamn 7-Eleven, let alone a major narcotics business—but what did that matter, when he was a Salamanca and Nacho was just some poor kid, who still smelled like desperation and mildewing armchairs? Tuco's another aristocrat; the kind of unstable king born at the end of a dynasty, after the bloodline's been poisoned by decades of inbreeding. The kind who'd hunt his peasants for sport. Tuco's hands are scarred and always bloody, but he doesn't do his own dirty work either, not really. He would do the killing himself, but he'd always leave Nacho to clean up afterwards.

Sitting at the poker table, Nacho looks over at Lalo, and wonders what he's going to have to do this time, now that he has to clean up after himself.

Lalo holds his cards loosely, almost carelessly; his fingers are light on their red plastic backs. His hands aren't cut up, like Tuco's, but they aren't Hector's old-man hands, either. Big hands; long fingers. Glints of light on short, even nails. Faint hairs—

“So Superman, how's that x-ray vision working on my cards?”

Nacho's eyes snap up from Lalo's hands to his smug face, and Lalo raises his eyebrows. It must be Nacho's turn; he calls, even though he doesn't remember which cards are in his hand. That's not what matters.

Lalo cracks a joke about red underwear and tights, and the rest of the table laughs uneasily; their eyes dart between him and Nacho.

He's not sure Lalo is even very good at poker, in the way he plays his cards—but Lalo knows how to play the table. His mood is changeable; deathly-serious for one hand, and then playful for the next. When Lalo jokes, everyone else nods along, but they sit in their chairs like stiff corpses, their cards sticky from their sweating palms. There's something so uncanny about Lalo's charming smile. A shadow in the dark, something moving around that you can't see.

Lalo wants to see a spectacle. He doesn't care that Nacho's good at his job. Rich boys don't go slumming to see competence; they want to see work-strengthened muscles in action; the desperate, cruel clawing of people barely keeping themselves alive. Of course, Lalo is a spectacle, too. He and Tuco have the same poisoned blood, after all. But Lalo can jump off the roof, and fall, and only sprain his ankle. If Nacho falls, he's going to die.

It's his turn again. He knows he can't fold.

Nacho flips his cards over, and—they're nothing. Technically, he has a pair, from the two aces on the table; but the cards in his hand were worthless.

“You deceitful little shit,” Lalo laughs, and then he turns over his own cards. The other two aces.

The table erupts with whooping and laughter; _quads, holy shit, Salamanca had quads!_ Lalo pulls the chips over to himself and Nacho is left with nothing, game over. A couple of the guys get up to look at Lalo's hand up close, to slap him on the back, and Lalo brushes them off; tells them to sit back down. It's a horrible loss for Nacho, but maybe, he thinks, it's a little satisfying, too. That he forced Lalo to play such a great hand, when Lalo could have won with so much less.

Once the men have settled down, Lalo turns to Nacho and says, “You know, you have a tell.”

“What is it?” asks Nacho, even though he knows he shouldn't rise to Lalo's bait; and how could he have had a tell, anyway, when he never knew what he was playing with?

“Uh-uh-uh,” Lalo wags his finger and laughs. “If I tell you, you'll try to change it. And I can't have that.”

As Lalo gives him a lingering pat on the shoulder, Nacho thinks about how much he misses Tuco—god, he never thought he'd say that! But as dangerous as things with Tuco were, at least they were always straight-forward. He could be friendly, but he never tried to make you forget what he was. And it seems almost quaint, now, how Tuco thought the best way to hurt people was to cut pieces off them.

Now Fring, he really knows how to make it hurt; and he barely has to lift one manicured finger to do it. He always acts so professional, so reasonable. Fring's not part of some crazy dynasty; he's the guy who wants to cut the head off the king; and hey, good for him—but if he pulls it off, then it'll just be Fring's reign of terror. The Salamancas torture Nacho for fun, and Fring tortures him because it's practical. They're different players, but it's the same fucking game.

It does make Nacho think, sometimes, about all the men _he's_ dragged out into the desert. Years of memories of guys cowering in the sand while they listened to Tuco's rants. And, if Tuco started to come down without killing them, then they'd get to talk to Nacho. And he'd lay it all out for them. _Hey, work with me; don't make me let the Salamancas kill you._ He'd explain to them, in a soft, even voice, that they had a choice between making a very bad decision and making a worse one. No malice in it; professional, reasonable.

With Tuco around, Nacho never had to be the thug. That's what Nacho really misses.

He feels like he should be above pulling stupid stunts and delivering beatings by now. After all, doesn't he have the status: the big, middle-class house, with the big, middle-class mortgage that he pays in blood money every month? Doesn't he have more cash than he knows how to spend? He gets all his clothes tailored to make up for the baggy, thrift-store shit he had to wear as a kid. He buys over-priced takeout every night and tries to convince himself it tastes better than his father's cooking.

When Nacho had first gotten the house, he wasn't sure what to put in it. His dad was always kind of a pack rat, and his house had been full of stuff: scraps of fabric; old-country tchotchkes he couldn't bear to throw away; little plastic saints that looked a lot like action figures, but (young Ignacio had learned very quickly) were _not_ something he was allowed to run over with his Hot Wheels. Nacho had ended up making a list of the shit he'd seen in rich people's houses in movies, and he'd bought almost all of it. It was too much stuff to deal with right away, so he'd piled up the boxes in a couple of his spare bedrooms to unpack later. Most of the boxes are still there, untouched.

Lalo comes to his house. That's something he can just do. Tuco and Hector never visited Nacho at home, and Fring may have Nacho abducted, but he's not kicking his feet up on Nacho's coffee table—but Lalo's different. Because they're friends now, or something. Lalo's the cool boss who keeps it casual by having no sense of boundaries. And he seems to like Nacho, to the extent that he finds Nacho amusing.

As Nacho opens the gate, Lalo looks him over like some beloved fighting cockerel, and smirks at the way his shirt clings to his arms. “Mind if I come in?”

Lalo's a vicious killer, but then, he's not exactly Saint Ignacio, himself. It's getting harder for him to pretend he's a better person for doing the same shit and just enjoying it less.

“So,” says Lalo, as he looks up at Nacho's high ceilings. “You got any beer? Food?”

Nacho almost says, _yeah, of course,_ but realizes that no, actually, he doesn't have any beer. There's literally nothing in his fridge; he just threw out the last of his old takeout yesterday. He has to get rid of spoiled food quickly, because if one of the girls sees it, she might eat it and get sick. He could have picked something up, if Lalo had bothered to mention he was coming over.

“I can order something,” Nacho says carefully, because he's not about to apologize for not having a feast on-hand for Lalo—but he can't afford to look rude, either.

It's always trick questions with the Salamancas, isn't it? For some reason, Nacho is reminded of Sunday school; being crammed into the back of the church with too many other sweaty children and hearing a lecture about _Santa Juana de Arco._ Little Jeanne, they said, was a rough-hewn peasant girl, but she had to have a light touch. When the English held her in their claws, they tried to trick her with questions that had no right answers. It didn't work, though; she was smarter than all of them. For all the fucking good that did her.

What was it she said, when they asked if she was in God's grace? _If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God keep me there._

No, he's not Saint Ignacio, but sometimes he gets flayed like a martyr.

Today, though, Lalo just nods. He sits on Nacho's couch, without even mentioning how the fabric reeks—the burning-roses smell of meth smoke—and he turns on the TV. Nacho goes into another room to scrounge up a takeout order; when he comes back, he sees that Lalo has changed the channel to watch two fighters box.

It's not a good match-up. One of the guys is stumbling, barely able to see out of swollen eyes; and the other guy is toying with him, knowing his opponent is weak. He could end the fight any time, clearly, but instead, he lets the blinded guy get in close, lets him keep swinging his flailing, fatigued arms. The fight drags on for several rounds. When the weak guy finally collapses, Lalo laughs.

“You ever do any boxing, _bro_?” he asks Nacho.

Lalo calls him _carnal_ , and what can he say? _No, don't call me_ _ **bro**_ _, we're not fucking friends_?

And god, maybe they are friends. It's been so long since Nacho's had a normal relationship that he's not really sure how friends act anymore. Maybe, for someone like him, this is as good as it gets.

He's been postponing getting friends or a normal girlfriend, because what would be the point of doing that now, while he's still the cartel's damn whipping boy? Better, he always thought, to wait until he got out. Even before everything went to hell, it's not like he wanted to sell drugs for the rest of his life. It was always just for a little longer: just until he knew that Molina kid wouldn't get himself killed, at first, and then, just until the heat died down; just until he had enough money so that no one in his family would ever have to upholster another goddamn chair for as long as they lived. But now he's creeping up on what would be the middle of a normal person's lifespan, and he's spent most of it in this supposedly transient way. Living inside his body like it's a cheap motel room, refusing to unpack his suitcase because he'll only be here a couple days, just a few more days.

Nacho shakes his head at Lalo; no, he's not a boxer.

“Bet you'd be real good at it. I mean, with that body,” Lalo whistles appraisingly and flashes his teeth.

“Boxing's not just about muscle,” Nacho says, even though he knows jack shit about boxing—other than that those giant gloves look ridiculous. If you want to hit someone, he thinks, you should both have to feel it.

“Not exclusively, but it sure doesn't hurt,” Lalo squints at him. “How much do you weigh?”

The vein in Nacho's temple pulses, but he answers.

Lalo grins. “Hey, we're in the same weight class,” he says, as he slaps his palms to his thighs and stands. He makes his hands into loose fists and circles them in front of his own face, like he's in an old cartoon. “Come on, let's fight a round.”

He knows it's no use arguing when Lalo's decided something, but Nacho still feels obligated to protest, “I don't know anything about boxing.”

“What, Tuco's guy doesn't know how to throw a punch? Come on. This is just for fun. I'm not expecting you to be Muhammad Ali. Tell you what—we can even keep everything below the neck. Then we won't mess up that pretty face of yours.”

Look, Nacho's not stupid; he can see what's going on here. But this isn't the sort of thing you engage with. It's hazing shit. Some guys like to see their men squirm, just for the power of it. Nacho does think Lalo genuinely admires his body, but in a managerial way, like _look at the arm on you, stud; I bet you could hurl a key of coke 50 yards._ Like how rich white guys admire their racehorses.

But then again, Nacho wouldn't put it past a rich white guy to _ride his horse off the track,_ so to speak.

If Lalo wants to see him uncomfortable, Nacho won't give him the satisfaction. He stands and takes off his shirt mechanically; he almost takes out his earring, too, but decides to take Lalo at his word about the fight staying below the neck. Looking over, he sees that Lalo's shirt is off, too—but so are his jeans. He's standing in his boxer-briefs, hands on his hips. Nacho's not sure he buys the line about them being in the same weight class, but Lalo _is_ in good shape; not super jacked, but strong.

Nacho takes off his pants, too, because it's expected of him. There; now both his mortal enemies have seen him in his shorts.

Lalo looks him up and down, a smug smile on his face. He always makes Nacho's skin crawl, but it's different now than when they first met. It's not only the fear and revulsion, the shivering night sweats, not anymore; it's more like Lalo has slithered under his skin. Like a parasite. Lalo isn't a leader of men, like Hector, but that's funny, because (in his own sick way) Lalo really is charming. Hector had all the charisma of a dead rat. He was just an evil husk of a man—but Lalo's disturbing because he's flesh and blood and friendly smiles. You could almost mistake him for a human being.

With a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, Nacho squares up. He shifts his feet a little, getting a feel for things, but he doesn't attack right away. He'd like Lalo to land the first blow, so he can gauge how hard he's expected to hit back. But Lalo's not on the offensive, either. He's standing back, eyes crinkled in a smile: silently insisting that Nacho make the first move.

So Nacho hits him straight-on, square in the chest, with around half his strength. Lalo doesn't dodge. He absorbs the hit, and then, when Nacho is in close, he takes his elbow and jams it between Nacho's ribs, right into his solar plexus.

Choking, Nacho stumbles backwards; his hands fall to his knees for support, as he struggles to stay upright. As soon as he gets a little air back into his lungs, he gasps, “There are no elbows in boxing.”

“Ah, so you _do_ know the sport!” Lalo grins. He runs his fingertips over the red spot on his chest, blooming in the aftermath of Nacho's punch. “Hmm. Not a terrible hit, but you can do better. Come on, Nacho. You know you want to.”

Nacho takes his hands off his knees and makes a wild swing at Lalo. Lalo dodges; he doesn't try any more cheap shots, but he's no longer standing still, either. That's fine with Nacho. The two of them start to circle each other, scuffing their feet on the floor to find out where there's a slippery patch of dust or a groove. Lalo doesn't want Nacho to pull his punches? Well, that's fine, too.

He aims another blow at the red spot on Lalo's chest, hoping to hit him where he's sore—but Lalo blocks with his forearm, and the punch drifts to the side. It still makes contact with Lalo's shoulder, though; and that makes him wince. Nacho feels his own face split into a vicious grin.

Lalo rolls his shoulder and strikes back. He looks like he's aiming high, but no (Nacho realizes a second too late): it's a feint. Lalo's eyeing the little bullet-shaped depression in Nacho's stomach. The thought makes Nacho flinch, even though the wound doesn't hurt anymore; even though the skin's actually thicker, there, and less vulnerable—like his body thinks a little built-up tissue is going to stop the next bullet.

Lalo's fist, which should have slammed into Nacho's abdomen by now, is just hovering slightly above his old wound. Instead of punching him, Lalo opens his fist, turning a couple fingers into a gun shape. He presses the barrel to Nacho's scar and flicks his thumb down like a trigger.

When Nacho was lying in the desert—sun cracking his lips and sand seeping into his wounds, really believing he was about to die—he had wondered if Fring would be angry with his men for killing the shiny new cartel spy. Fring had said he owned Nacho. If one of his lackeys destroyed his property, would Fring have had them killed, and granted Nacho vengeance from beyond the grave? Lying agonized in the dirt, before glassy shock had finally eased the heartbeat throbbing of his side, Nacho had sure hoped so.

But then he'd lived. So he doesn't think about that anymore.

What he does still remember, sometimes, is the vision he saw of his father—when he was at his weakest, after all his revenge fantasies had bled out of him and dried sticky against his back. He had seen his father crying over him, wailing and laying his hands on Nacho's coffin; and even though Nacho was dead in the vision, he could still think. So he had wondered, _now who is going to care for you when you get old, papá?_ Who would help him move furniture, translate English; who would make sure some asshole with a sob story didn't cheat him out of his savings? Nacho had worried about this. But his father, who was a good man, was not thinking about himself.

That goodness would support him, for a time; from the coffin, on his back, Nacho could see how the community gathered around his father. The church was full, and Nacho knew the adage about funerals being for the living was true, because none of these people were here for him. Except maybe Domingo, but even he sat near the back and shifted in his seat, more concerned with what Nacho's death meant for his own prospects than for the man himself; not sure whether he could separate the gently folded hands on Nacho's dead chest from the ones that had beaten him until he could barely move. Nacho had wanted to watch Domingo, but he had lost sight of him, as a flock of little old ladies came in; they descended upon Nacho's father, bringing him covered dishes and steadying his shaky hands with their own arthritic grips; all of them consoled him with sweet words. But behind his back, they whispered, 'Well, we all saw this coming.' 'That boy was always trouble.' 'My, how God cursed that poor man with such a wretched son.'

It wasn't a realistic vision. If he had really died, Marco and Leonel would have left him in some unmarked desert grave. There was transfused Salamanca blood inside his body, after all; they couldn't risk having to explain that. He'd disappear. His dad might suspect the truth, or he might think Nacho had skipped town—but either way, the big church scene was just a fantasy.

Lalo's fingers ease out of their gun shape and start rubbing gentle circles over Nacho's old wound. “Gutshot, huh? That must've hurt.”

“Have you ever been shot?” asks Nacho, and it feels like saying the first half of a pickup line. _Would you like to be?_

Lalo says no, he hasn't, which doesn't surprise Nacho in the least. He keeps tracing Nacho's scar with his light fingers.

The takeout shows up just when Nacho had forgotten he ordered it. He tips the kid at the door extra, because he's grateful for an excuse to get away from Lalo, but also because her hands are ragged and peeling; her nails bitten bloody. She smiles at the tip and thanks him in her heavily-accented voice, but she won't meet his eyes. It takes him a minute to realize that it's because, in his rush to the door, he'd forgotten to put his pants back on.

Chinese food. Nacho ordered the beef and broccoli for Lalo, because he knows from experience that it's always tasteless and overcooked. He got a case of beer, too—off-menu; yet another reason to tip the delivery girl. It's a Chinese brew, and Lalo eyes the label disdainfully; but after taking a sip, he shrugs. _This'll do._

The takeout boxes look like little white headstones. Nacho unpacks them; smooths out the plastic bag they came in. It's printed with a picture on the front: the characters for _thank you_ under a cartoon family of smiling peasants in rice hats.

Nacho thinks about the peasants somewhere at the crest of South America; smiling peasant families digging their hands into the dirt, planting coca plants in little green rows. Planting and toiling under the gunfire and smoke, so that some distant gringo lawyer can snort his second wind off a bathroom sink; so a college kid can get a better lay. So that he can sit here, in his big house, having dinner with his asshole boss, and feel like shit.

He knows he should probably try to get Lalo beer-drunk and see if he'll spill any cartel secrets. He doesn't want to. Lalo sits across from him, chewing hard on little bits of shoe-leather beef and barely touching his drink; instead, it's Nacho who somehow finds himself opening a fourth beer.

“No, no, no. This isn't right,” Lalo says suddenly. “We can't leave it like this. The boxing. We're tied at two hits. We've gotta see who's better. It'll kill me if we don't.”

It's cheap as hell of Lalo to spring this on him now, just as he's starting to get tipsy—and Lalo looks like he's daring Nacho to say so, to balk at the unfairness. But actually, Nacho's starting to get into this idea. _Go on and try it, you slimy Salamanca bastard; I'll beat you at your own game._

“Same rules?” asks Nacho. “No head shots?”

“Of course,” Lalo says, but with a little cheerful edge in his voice; and right there, Nacho just _knows_ Lalo is going to try to break his nose.

They kick the chairs out of the way and circle up again, pacing around each other; stretching back into things. Lalo throws a few feints, but Nacho's starting to get a feel for Lalo's style, now; he doesn't fall for them. And then, just like Nacho knew, he fucking knew it—Lalo's arm suddenly swings high, right at Nacho's face.

But he's too slow; Nacho ducks under Lalo arm and then springs up again. He slams the side of his head into Lalo's jaw.

There are no headbutts in boxing, either.

Lalo staggers and curses, spitting a mouthful of blood onto Nacho's floor. He reaches up to gingerly touch his face and hisses in pain. Another dribble of blood comes out of his mouth, and he wipes it on the back of his hand. And then he looks at Nacho.

And his face breaks into a fond smile, soft light in his eyes. “Now you're getting it.”

Then quickly, much faster than he threw his punches, Lalo reaches out and pulls Nacho in close. Nacho stands completely still and tense, as it suddenly hits him: what has he done, he was thinking, _what the hell was I thinking, to do that to a Salamanca?_ But Lalo pats a hand on Nacho's naked back, like he's proud; and then he smacks a bloody kiss onto Nacho's cheek.

And after that, Lalo gets a call and leaves; and Nacho stands alone in his kitchen, with Lalo's blood drying on his face. By force of habit, he starts cleaning up; he chucks Lalo's leftovers in the garbage and then grabs his own untouched food to put in the fridge. But once he gets the door open, he just stands in front of it, pressing his bruised knuckles to the cool plastic inside. He thinks about how, at the start of the fight, Lalo had stayed perfectly still; just waiting for the chance to nail Nacho in the solar plexus. That's not the most painful place to get hit, but it might be the scariest. When the wind gets knocked out of you, it's not a pain you can grit your teeth against. It's a total drowning feeling; a complete lack of control.

Nacho has an appointment the next day—some oversight shit in Domingo's turf—and he shows up late.

It's fine. It's not like he adds anything to the process. The guys out in the field know the best way to handle their work; he probably only makes things worse by standing around, breathing down their necks. Nacho understands that, because he's not like Lalo; he wasn't carried up to the top on a gold litter. No, isn't he just _so much better,_ because every neck and back he crushed to get where he is, he stepped on with his own two feet.

When Lalo sees him arrive, he smiles and slowly twists his head, so that Nacho can see the vibrant purple mark on his jaw.

“Hey _bro_ , where you been?”

Lalo calls him _mano_ , and at his sides, his hands clench into fists.

“Just got busy,” he lies. Because even if he could, he wouldn't want to explain what he does some mornings; how he drives the city with the radio turned off, looking for green highway exit signs that say beautiful things like _Phoenix_ and _Santa Fe_ , and thinking about how, from there, it's only a third of a day's drive to Denver; maybe half a day to Nevada.

They might as well be exit signs to the fucking moon.

“ _Busy_ , huh?” Lalo wags his eyebrows and looks at Nacho knowingly. “Girlfriend?”

Nacho knows he should just agree; that he should really be thankful Lalo offered him such an easy out. But he says no, that's not what it was.

“Oh no, man. That's terrible! You can't neglect your woman like that. Work is one thing, but—”

“There's no _woman_ ,” he snaps, which is more or less true. But he's only saying it because he can't stand to hear Lalo speculate about his romantic life.

“My god, no woman!” Lalo grabs Nacho's chin in his hand and moves it side to side, laughing. Tilting his own head back towards Domingo's guy, Lalo says, “No wonder he's so gloomy!”

The guy, Martín, snorts. Nacho fixes him with a glare (which would probably be more menacing if Lalo's hand wasn't still on his face, smushing his lips around, like a child), but Martín just shrugs, as if to say, _well boss, you know it's true_.

“Should we get to business?” Nacho presses.

Lalo huffs petulantly, but finally lets go of Nacho's face.

For the rest of the meeting, Nacho can't pay attention. His eyes won't stay on Martín's face; they keep getting pulled back into the black hole gravity of Lalo's dark bruise. He wonders what Lalo is going to say when people ask how he got it. Maybe the truth; because what does Lalo have to be afraid of? Nacho, on the other hand, is still half-expecting Lalo to get a twinge in his jaw and suddenly realize he should kill the guy responsible. That's what any other Salamanca would do. They would never let someone who cheated them in a fight survive.

It's irrelevant that Lalo cheated first.

Nacho can remember the time he got caught cheating on a test. He and a few of his friends—they must have been around twelve or thirteen at the time—had found an answer key copy in the school's printer, and they'd folded it up to pass around during the exam. Of course, since they were a bunch of uncoordinated kids, it had taken them about 30 seconds to get caught. When his dad had found out, Nacho had seen, for the first time, that look of crushing disappointment that is now all-too familiar. And Nacho had sputtered out all the standard little-kid excuses about how everybody else was doing it, and it wasn't a big deal, and most of the other kids' families didn't even care. His dad had sadly shaken his head and said, _my son, you're not the kind of person who's allowed to cheat._

His dad had meant that Nacho was supposed to be a better person than his snot-nosed friends; that he could be good, if he would just try. And obviously, that had been false; but there was some truth to the _way_ his dad had said it. Nacho wasn't allowed to cheat. But some people—definitely not Nacho's little school friends, but some people—they were allowed to cheat; to lie, to hurt whoever they wanted. Even his father must have realized that, on some level. The people at the top could be brazen, because they were never going to be held accountable for what they did; but Nacho, way on the bottom, had to learn to be sneaky. He'd cheated on plenty of tests in the future, but he never got caught again.

Lalo catches him as he's leaving the meeting, just as he's getting into his car. 

“Drive me home,” he says cheerfully; but it's not a request.

Nacho knows this, so he waits until after he's turned on the engine and shifted into gear to make his token protest: “What about your car?”

“Martín will take care of it,” says Lalo, with a carefree wave of his hand—even though he only met Martín an hour ago.

It's strange that Lalo's being so careless with his vehicle. Maybe it's another result of Lalo's weird Salamanca upbringing. After all, if anything happens to the car, Lalo can just kill whoever's responsible and buy something new. That's not what Tuco was would have done. But Nacho doesn't know any other reason why Lalo would be so eager to ride with him.

Nacho remembers his first car. That's a fonder memory than cheating on tests—even though really, that car was the beginning of the end for him. It was the first really nice thing he'd bought himself with drug money.

Well, _nice_ is an overstatement. It was an '87 Dodge Charger—ugly as hell, and he'd bought it used from a chain smoker, who'd left such a stench on the interior that you could hardly breathe inside with the windows rolled up. His dad had offered to help him redo the upholstery, but that had seemed lame, at the time; to have some homemade shit, instead of the cool, standarized design from a real factory. None of the flaws mattered; he had loved that car. He thought it made him look like a real badass. Imagine if that kid could see him now.

It's easy to think, _Oh God, if you're out there, please let me wake up sixteen again and I'll do it all differently, I'll work my fingers bloody and never complain; I'll marry a good woman who's never even smoked pot and give Dad grandchildren to dote on; just let me go back and I'll never touch a gun or a key or a rolled-up wad of hundreds, and then everything will be fixed, everyone will be safe and happy_ —but it's not that simple.

He thinks about the owner of the restaurant where they do count; about the owner of the garage. They aren't cartel guys. They're normal men: not as upright as his dad, clearly, but not bad people. They never talk to him, but he's felt their scared, suspicious eyes on him often enough to know they don't want filthy drug dealers exploiting their businesses. It isn't something they'd ever do if they weren't forced. And _force_ doesn't just mean cartel threats; an endless pile of bills can weight just as heavy as a gun at your temple. If Nacho had been a good man, and never slipped dirty money into the shop's accounts, then what hard decisions would have fallen on his dad, instead? What would his father have been willing to do? Everyone's morals, he's learned, have their breaking points.

When he pulls up to Lalo's house, Lalo insists that he _come on in, relax a little._ Then he disappears into his kitchen, leaving Nacho to face the surreal, Ikea-catalog living room on his own. He finds it deeply disturbing that someone like Lalo owns coffee table books. He's not sure what he expected; medieval torture devices, maybe. But Lalo probably didn't even decorate this place. It's like the Salamanca family's guest house.

The only lived-in detail of the place is a small, lighted aquarium in one corner, overfull with fish of all different colors; their tails billowing out in the water like wide skirts. Nacho presses his hand to the cool glass, and they all swim over to him, expecting food.

Lalo comes back from the kitchen and very pointedly holds up a can of beer, showing Nacho the label (it's a Mexican brand) before pressing it into his hand. Noticing Nacho's interest, Lalo taps the aquarium glass with one knuckle.

“Siamese fighting fish. They're pretty, huh? Mean little bitches, though,” says Lalo. He comes up beside Nacho and pinches a couple food flakes into the tank—not nearly enough for all the fish. There's a flurry of color as the animals rush to the surface. In desperation, a couple of pairs start attacking each other; thrashing their silky tails and biting each other's faces, twirling violently in their tiny cage.

Lalo orders him to take a seat, and so he does. He holds the cold beer can between his sweaty palms; refusing to open it, because that would mean accepting that he isn't getting out of here. And Lalo takes a sip of his own drink and just watches Nacho thoughtfully.

It seems like he's waiting for Nacho to comment, so Nacho hastily glances around for something to point out. He notices how the room's big front windows frame the skyline; and the mountains in the distance, cutting up like new teeth through the jaws of the earth. "Nice view."

Lalo shrugs. "Mmm. Sand, rocks, sand, rocks. It gets old pretty fast," There's something in Lalo's voice that almost sounds like a twinge. "But I'll only have to look at it while we get business sorted up here."

Nacho has often thought, longingly, of Lalo going away from Albuquerque—but never about Lalo going _back_ to somewhere else. Was it really possible; could the devil himself be homesick? And if Lalo has a home to miss, Nacho wonders what other strange things he might have: friends, a girlfriend? A loving father? 

"God, the people in this town, though," Lalo sniffs. "Fucking _yanquis_ , man. So rude! And so doughy." Then he offhandedly adds, "Not you, of course."

Nacho pops the tab on his beer and takes a long drink.

“Oh, what, did I offend the hometown boy?” Lalo stares at him for a second and then shakes his head. “Nah—you're not crazy about this shithole, either. I can tell. Come on, tell me there's nothing you'd change about this place if you could.”

Nacho can't blame Albuquerque for not being what he wants. Every city has crime; and every city has kids just angry and greedy and desperate enough to think that's what's going to make them _someone._ And even if he could leave, even if he could go anywhere in the world, he'd still have to be who he is.

But all the same, “I wish it snowed more.”

“It fucking _snows_ here?” This is apparently the last straw for Lalo.

“Just a little. It melts right away.”

“Snow, really,” Lalo shakes his head and makes a little huffing laugh. “What's the matter, Nacho; can't stand the heat?”

“That's not what I said.”

“No. No, it isn't,” Lalo acknowledges, and then, in a gesture that could almost be normal if it wasn't so drawn-out and deliberate, Lalo drops his hand onto Nacho's knee.

Nacho's first thought is, _ah, so those rich gringos really **were** fucking Seabiscuit._

But no, that's not quite it. Lalo's hand only lingers a moment too long, and then he draws it away again; it's gone, and Lalo's back to rambling about New Mexico's climate. The only evidence that anything even happened is the curious look in Lalo's eyes, as he waits to see how Nacho will respond. So, at least in this way, he's more to Lalo than some dumb animal. He gets to make a choice.

He thinks about choices, and feels like he's back in the desert with Tuco again: trying to sell the lesser of two evils to the tiny, sane part of his brain that's cowering in the sand. In the land of opportunity, you can choose to work or starve; and in the business, you can serve Fring or die. And here, now, Nacho can choose to be with Lalo, or he can go home, where no one really wants to be with him at all.

Nacho reaches out, hand shaking only a little, and traces the curve of Lalo's jaw; drawing his fingers gently over the bruise. And then, Lalo grabs Nacho's wrist and takes Nacho's first two fingers into his mouth, biting only a little too hard at the knuckles. Lalo reaches a hand over to smooth along the inside of Nacho's waistband. And Nacho feels a crushing pressure in his chest; he opens his mouth to relieve it, and lets out a strained burst of laughter.

Lalo pulls back slightly, eyebrows furrowed. “What are you—”

And Nacho slams their teeth together to make him shut up, shut the fuck up, _god just for once in your life stop torturing me and be quiet_.

Lalo has to bite down on Nacho's tongue until it bleeds before he'll pull back. He breathes ragged, open-mouth breaths, and Lalo watches him, completely calm. Lalo's frowning, but he doesn't take his hands off Nacho's hips.

Nacho's not sure what Lalo's upset about. Maybe the kiss on the mouth was too much. God, trying to do this is like navigating a minefield of Salamanca machismo—

But no, then Lalo leans back in, and kisses him again. Then it's his blood in Lalo's mouth, and damn blood all over both their hands; and Lalo doesn't see him as he really is, but this is probably as close as anyone could get and still want him.

After Lalo gets his pants off, Nacho tries not to think too much; he doesn't want to accidentally commit any of this to memory, doesn't want to be thinking about Lalo on some lonely future night. He just wants to get swept away for a little while.

He knows that at some point, he asks Lalo, in Spanish, something along the lines of, “Are you about to come, mister?” and Lalo pulls a face and snaps, “Don't _usted_ me when we're fucking.”

So Nacho just shuts up; until suddenly, he gasps through his teeth—and it's over.

Lalo goes to shower. Nacho doesn't move; he lies on his back on the couch, with its fine, nubuck leather sticking to his slick skin. In the aquarium, the little rainbow of fish keep swimming in tight circles. Nacho clenches his right hand and feels the sticky residue on it crack; and he lets out another bitter laugh.

If Fring finds out about this, he's going to burn Nacho alive.

But for once, Fring isn't even the issue. Nacho has no idea what he's just gotten himself into with Lalo, and no clue where he'll be expected to go in the future. He's falling head-first into a pit he can't see the bottom of, and all he knows is that when it all ends, Lalo will pass his judgment. And Nacho thinks: if he is in Lalo's good graces, may god keep him there; and if he is not, may god have mercy on his fucking soul.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Lethwei, also known as **Burmese boxing** , is one of the only combat sports to allow striking with the head. Unlike western boxing, it is fought bare-knuckled, and is not scored with points; the only way to win is to knock your opponent out._  
> 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this, please comment and let me know! I always love getting to talk about this show.
> 
> Update: And please look at this amazing [fanart](https://krokorobin.tumblr.com/post/612952057776832512/but-no-then-lalo-leans-back-in-and-kisses-him) by krokorobin on tumblr!


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